Sanctuary
by Mia Vaan
Summary: Season three goes a little differently when Chloe prevents Lucifer's kidnapping and sees his wings.


**Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or this show. If I did, this is how season 3 would've gone.**

**AN: Honestly, I'm not entirely satisfied with this. It would be better if I turned this into a full-blown story. But right now, I'm tired, and I know my muse is going to go walkabout again any day now, so I'm leaving this as it is. If anyone else wants to turn this into a full-blown story, then go ahead.**

**Also, for those of you reading this who have Netflix (though since _Lucifer_ is now on Netflix, I imagine most of you do), go watch _The New Legends of Monkey_. It's an awesome show that needs more love.**

* * *

This is our sanctuary,

you are, you are safe with me

– "Sanctuary", _Welshly Arms_

* * *

Chloe thought that under any other circumstances, the whole situation would be funny. Well, maybe not _any_, but she imagined that one day she'd look back on the evening and laugh.

As it was, she was hiding inside a bush with her unconscious partner – who was _actually the Devil himself_, who had also grown _a humongous pair of white wings _on his back – and listening to the message said partner had left on her phone.

The message said that he wanted to tell her the truth. Mission a-_fucking_-ccomplished. And while she wouldn't put it past him to tell her his biggest secret in the most elaborate way possible, she didn't think he'd wanted to tell her by way of an attempted kidnapping she had to foil.

Plus, he was unconscious. She knew he would've wanted to be fully awake when she found out, just so he could poke fun at her, a _Detective_, for not figuring it out sooner. The ass.

A visit to the hospital had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Eventually, she figured that she was calm enough to get Lucifer to safety, so dragged him back to her car and drove him to Lux. She took the elevator from the underground parking lot straight to his penthouse, awkwardly carried him to his bed – his wings were an inconvenience for herself physically and her mental state, and that summed up her partner so _perfectly_ that she knew they were real and definitely his – and though she didn't want to, she left him there.

A quick text to Amenadiel (a freaking _Angel_, holy crap) eased her guilt a little bit. But she needed to go home a process, and she couldn't do that while those…those _wings_ were staring her right in the face.

She got back to her apartment and sent the babysitter home. She checked on her sleeping daughter and fought down the urge to wake Trixie, pack up their things and run. She was an adult, she told herself, and she was going to handle it like an adult.

After five minutes of telling herself that she couldn't move to Canada and change her name to Jane Doe, she took out a bottle of wine and a glass. Then she discarded the glass and drunk straight from the bottle.

Lucifer was the Devil. The actual, _freaking_ Devil. Satan himself.

Two versions of the Devil warred within her. There was the one she'd read about, the one who was evil incarnate, who represented the worst of humanity, tempted them to sin, tried to destroy God, referred to often as the Prince of Lies, a hideous monster both inside and out…

And then there was _her_ Lucifer. Her Lucifer, who could be an asshole sometimes but still deeply cared about the people around him, who helped her bring the worst of humanity to justice, who could draw out people's desires but never forced them to do anything, had enough daddy issues to keep Linda in business until her retirement but weren't any different to the average joe's daddy issues, always made a point of never lying (though he tended to omit the truth often enough), had a good heart even though his emotional comprehension wasn't always on the ball, _was very much not hideous looking_…

And then there were his wings. His beautiful, white wings, which Chloe couldn't forget no matter how hard she tried. Lucifer was a fallen Angel. Lucifer had once been an Angel.

All of the information she'd found before during research, back when she'd first met Lucifer, was beginning to look more and more like the biblical version of a tabloid magazine. Like a detective, she tried to match up what was being said about him to the person she knew.

And while there was a lot more to process – since her strongly-held belief about the world had been turned on its head – Chloe Decker made the first step when she looked at two sides of a story, both of which contradicted each other, and chose the one she believed in.

At the end of the day, there wasn't even a choice as to which side it was going to be.

* * *

When Lucifer finally made a reappearance two days later, he didn't give any indication that he knew she knew.

Chloe thought at first that maybe he was acting like he normally did when something happened between them, when he acted like it had _never_ happened and took so many steps backwards, she thought about renaming the phrase 'one step forwards, ten thousand steps back'. But then he asked if she'd gotten his message and said that he had something to tell her, and she realized that he didn't know.

He _did_ mention getting knocked out, though, and also asked her if she'd seen who'd done it. So, he knew she'd taken him home, but perhaps thought that his wings hadn't appeared until after she left.

They found a lead in the form of a body being dumped in the desert, discovered by several officers who'd been in pursuit of a suspect driving a stolen vehicle. Whoever had dumped that body, Chloe soon learned from Ella, had been driving the same van she'd seen at the scene of Lucifer's attempted kidnapping.

Lucifer then decided that half way through the case, in the middle of the precinct, was the best time and place to try and spring on her that he was really the Devil. Whatever he tried to do to prove it to her didn't work, and he just looked constipated.

Chloe had to admit that she took some satisfaction from the look on his face when she told him she already knew, because asshole that he was, he'd decided to spring his wings on her when he was unconscious. The satisfaction didn't last long, because he (unsurprisingly) emotionally shut down for the rest of the case, unable to comprehend that she wasn't terrified of him and screaming at him to stay away from her.

Though she later learned that it wasn't just her reaction that did this, but also the disappearance of his "Devil Face", the thing he'd tried to show her in the precinct.

* * *

It took Chloe longer than she was comfortable with to realize that Lucifer was cutting his wings off. Repeatedly.

She was so focussed on asking him all sorts of questions about being the Devil and what he'd seen over the many thousands of years of being alive – could he really speak any language, did Hell expand on its own or was it made big enough in advance, what was Shakespeare like, was the world really made in seven days, was she going to Hell if she didn't go to church – that she didn't notice something was up until Dan slapped him on the back and he winced in pain.

And since he never lied, it didn't take Chloe long to weasel it out of him.

What he was doing was self-harm, and the argument it caused between them nearly prevented them from solving the case. (Though it revealed that Linda also knew about Lucifer's true identity; Chloe made a note to go and see her.) And when the case was closed, Chloe ended up forcing her hand and making Lucifer promise not to cut them off anymore.

He couldn't deny her anything, and he was a man of his word. But Chloe knew that in forcing the promise, their relationship had taken another step back. He'd dropped the Sinnerman topic, something he hadn't stopped going on about since the kidnapping, which was unusually for him. She'd believed him about the crime boss being real (because if the Devil was real, why not?), but hadn't found any evidence of him connected to the kidnapping case. Lucifer, typically, had been insistent.

The fact that he'd dropped the subject… She suspected that he was going after the elusive crime boss himself, and not including her hurt more than she was willing to admit.

* * *

Maze was a whole other can of worms.

After Linda got out of hospital, the demon had taken off on several bounty hunts across the country, so it had been a few weeks before Chloe could talk to her properly. Maze had been defensive at first, had even threatened to castrate Lucifer for letting the cat out of the bag, until Chloe talked her down and explained that nothing had to change between them.

Leaving Trixie alone with a demon was something that should've bothered Chloe, but it didn't. The talk with Linda had helped.

She was still wary, of course. Maze wasn't as soft as Lucifer could be. A bounty hunt in Canada changed that; Chloe spent all of her time worried about her roommate, constantly checking up on her, having Lucifer of all people tell her to calm down (until _he_ started to panic himself).

It gave her some perspective. Maze was a demon, didn't always do everything right, didn't always understand that she had to wash dirty dishes instead of putting them in the trash, but she was fighting on the right side.

On the flip side, the LAPD was darker and dirtier than she thought, and the justice system she believed in wasn't all sunshine and roses. Even lieutenants could be dirty, and she needed to watch her back.

* * *

Chloe really hoped that Lucifer was paying Linda a hefty sum of money, because she deserved it. Unravelling the mind of Lucifer Morningstar was a task that seemed impossible.

Lucifer wanted his Devil Face back – even though he sounded like he hated it whenever he talked about it, and hated being called evil incarnate. He hated his wings – but freaked out when they'd been stolen (and deep down he acted like an Angel, always tried to do the right thing, always cared about those he was close to). He hated the fact that he was changing – even though Chloe thought he was a lot happier than he'd been when she first met him.

He was a mess of contradictions, rejecting his emotions but sticking close to her. She knew he had some kind of feelings for her, but always pulled away. Part of her wondered if he resented her for giving him those feelings, for changing him.

The feelings were mutual. She knew that she loved him, and that love had taken a battering when he'd left her and gotten married to a stripper. Upon learning the truth, she'd figured that was why he left her; he hadn't wanted her to attach herself to the Devil himself, who would live for eons without her.

If she'd thought being with Lucifer wasn't a good idea before, she definitely did now. Being with the literal Devil would never work. He was a good man (no matter what he told himself and everyone around him), and he was a good partner, but he wasn't dating material. She needed to let those fantasies go and wake up to the real world. Be with someone who was safe, dependable.

Marcus had surprised her. He'd saved her life. She may have hated him before, but he'd changed her mind. The fact that he was her boss held her back, but he seemed like the kind of guy she could fall for.

She would wait and see what happened.

* * *

Things continued on as normal – or as normal as her life could be, with the Devil as her partner and a demon as her roommate.

Everything that happened with Charlotte Richards was cleared up. The woman had died in that hotel room, and the Goddess of Creation, Lucifer's mother, had inhabited her body. The fact that her ex-husband had slept with said Goddess wasn't as big of a shock as it should have been, but then again, she was in love with the Devil.

The Goddess was gone, so it didn't matter, and the real Charlotte Richards was left in her place. A woman who was confused, lost, and battling her demons. Chloe found that she preferred this woman over Lucifer's mother.

Lucifer taking off for Vegas, on her _birthday_, hurt. Especially since it was about Candy, his ex-wife. He _did_ manage to clear some of it up once he returned, but Chloe knew he was only telling her half of the story. It was all well and good that he helped this woman out – who was apparently a lot smarter than the blonde bimbo act she'd pulled – but did he really need to marry someone in order to find out what his mother was up to? He could've done that many different ways.

She had a feeling the real reason was to do with her, but didn't want to dive too deep into that line of thought. It hurt too much to think about.

He did make things up to her by giving her what she honestly considered to be the best birthday gift she'd ever received: a necklace made out of the bullet she'd shot him with. He was like an emotional yo-yo, showing affection towards her one moment then running away from her the next, but in that particular moment, she didn't care.

Encountering Reese Getty again was…unsettling. She didn't know why she felt that way about him until after he'd died, and everything was out in the open. Not only was he Linda's ex-husband (who'd been determined to ruin Lucifer upon learning he and Linda were sleeping together), but he'd been stalking them all for a year. Chloe felt sick to her stomach when she saw the pictures of not only her, but Trixie too. Reese had somehow found out that Lucifer was the Devil, and had been trying to find a way to prove it.

There was no visible evidence of the divine, so Chloe let everything be stored in Evidence. She did, however, make a note of the fact that her picture was connected by a string to the word 'vulnerable'.

Chloe found out some time afterwards that hers and Lucifer's lives had intertwined long before now. Amenadiel had been the one who reported the mugging on the Aiden Scott case, and he and Lucifer had been investigating the murder in order to get Amenadiel's necklace back (which the murderer had stolen). They'd convinced Tio to cooperate, and Lucifer had scared the confession out of Gil.

The case had not only led to Chloe being promoted to Detective, but had also convinced Lucifer to remain on Earth instead of returning to Hell. They'd successfully solved a case together without even knowing it, and if that didn't prove what a great team they made…

Linda mentioned to Chloe that in order to rebuild some trust between her and Lucifer again, she needed to show just how much she trusted him. Chloe did that by inviting him to a game night with Trixie; to show him that she trusted him to be around her child. It predictably led to an entirely different problem, in that Lucifer believed he was becoming "boring".

According to him, he had to be glamorous to be exciting. Chloe tried to be like him, and it didn't take her long to learn that being herself was infinitely better. At the end of the day, it appeared as though Lucifer had learnt nothing – until Chloe discovered that the shoe piece was missing from the monopoly set.

And really, if Lucifer was so against boring people, why did he like being with her, whom he had called boring too many times to count?

* * *

Chloe honestly wasn't that angry that Lucifer had been investigating the Sinnerman behind her back. What really made her angry was that Pierce had been investigating with him. Added to that his rejection of her request for a personal day…

She was ready to start hating him again until he revealed to her why he was so intent on catching the Sinnerman; the mob boss had killed his brother. Chloe talked about what happened to her father, and she was certain they'd shared a moment. Especially after she managed to stop him from outright killing the Sinnerman, instead convincing him to bring the guy in. Perhaps a relationship would be good between them.

Things, predictably, weren't that simple. The Sinnerman gouged his own eyes out to prevent Lucifer from working his mojo on him, and things went from bad to worse when the criminal revealed a girl would drown in a spot only he knew of if they didn't release him.

And then things got crazier that had nothing to do with the Sinnerman at all.

She nearly had a heart attack when Lucifer was caught in an explosion. Too far away to warn him, she ran without pause until she reached him and discovered that he wasn't hurt. He didn't have a single scratch on him. Something nagged at the back of her mind, but with a girl in peril she didn't waste time on the thought and pressed on.

It was only after they'd sprung the Sinnerman from the precinct and were hiking through the woods, did the picture become clearer. Lucifer cut himself on a branch, and leaving the Sinnerman with Pierce, Chloe questioned her partner in private; how could he survive an explosion without a scratch one day, but cut his finger on a small branch the next?

The answer was her. Somehow, being close to her made him bleed. Made him vulnerable.

Many things added up – why he'd avoided her for three weeks that time and his behaviour afterwards being the first that came to mind – but one thing that didn't was when he'd been shot on their first case together. Lucifer didn't have an answer to that, and there were more questions than there were answers the more she thought about it, but now wasn't the time.

He suggested a new step in their plan: he would take the Sinnerman elsewhere once they rescued the girl, and try to find out how this mortal man managed to take away his Devil Face and give him back his wings. Chloe didn't like it, but if this man was as powerful as Lucifer was suggesting, then mortal justice couldn't hold him. She gave her approval, and Lucifer took him away while she and Pierce saved the girl from drowning.

When the girl revealed that the whole thing was a set-up, Chloe feared that Lucifer had just walked into a trap.

She managed to split from Pierce and made her way to Lucifer's private home. When she arrived, Lucifer looked ready to kill the Sinnerman, so she intervened and stopped him – which nearly ended in tragedy when the Sinnerman picked up a knife and threw it at her. Lucifer pushed her out of the way, and it missed him by mere inches, instead catching on his jacket and pinning him to the wall.

Lucifer was mortal around her. He could die. And not only did he continue to work with her, but he put his own life at risk to keep her safe. She made the Devil bleed.

Caught up in the moment, she barely even noticed Pierce storm in (he'd followed her, somehow) and shoot the Sinnerman dead.

* * *

Betrayal was something Chloe was used to, unfortunately. The hurt of being gaslighted by Dan had long since passed, but there were times when it would return and she would wonder why she ever tried getting back together with her ex. And it happened again when Lucifer had left her after her poisoning, and though she suspected there was a good reason behind his actions, it still hurt to think about.

At least she hadn't started dating Marcus – who was actually Cain.

He'd used her. He'd put her in danger to try an get himself killed, thinking that her effect on Lucifer would work on him, too. He was the real Sinnerman, the man behind the man, and had raised the false Sinnerman from childhood to act in his place. There was also that little detail about him being the first murderer, killing his own brother, and he'd told her the truth from a certain point of view…

It made her feel sick. Talk about dodging a bullet.

Lucifer was angry on her behalf – at first.

Well, he was probably still angry, but he apparently had the grand idea to help Cain die in order to get back at God for manipulating him. The asshole was going to leave town, but Lucifer stopped him because of his daddy issues.

Chloe had a feeling it was all going to end badly. Still, it would give her the chance to out the lieutenant as a mob boss, and she hoped that Lucifer would take her side when the time came.

* * *

She told herself over and over that she wasn't jealous, but eventually she had to face the fact that she was.

Lucifer and Pierce – _Cain_, she corrected herself, _his name was Cain and he was a murderer_ – were kissing in the garden, and she had to look away. Only to find herself looking at a picture of the two posing together. She slapped it down.

Deep down, she knew it was for the best. Because if she and Lucifer had been the ones undercover, it would have been too real and she doubted they would've been able to return to normal afterwards. It didn't change the fact that it hurt, because the heart wanted what the heart wanted. And she wanted Lucifer.

Maybe taking a page out of Charlotte's book was a good idea. She needed time away from romantic relationships and the whole dating scene in order to focus on herself and her own needs. Her desperation to date someone other than Lucifer had led to her showing an interest in _Cain_, after all.

* * *

Lucifer had killed his brother.

As was typical with a case, Lucifer was using it to deal with his own issues; the fact that Ella's brother was involved led to Lucifer working through a disagreement with Amenadiel. At first.

It came out that the previous year, Uriel had come to Earth to retrieve their mother, and had threatened Chloe in order to force Lucifer's hand. The two had fought, and when Uriel had been mere seconds away from ending her life – and that was scary, that her life had been so close to ending without her even realizing – Lucifer had been forced to kill his brother to stop him.

And not in the conventional way, by sending him to Heaven. He'd used Azrael's blade, which according to him, destroyed the souls of celestials. Uriel was gone for good.

She remembered his paranoia right before Halloween, and then his suicidal depression that followed, and she felt guilty that she hadn't taken his pain seriously (for the most part). He'd saved her life, had caused himself pain in the process, and she hadn't even been sympathetic. She was towards the end of the case, when he'd nearly been shot by the suspect, but it was too late coming.

When their current case was over, she hugged him and begged him to forgive her for the way she'd acted back then. He told her there was nothing to forgive.

* * *

Part of Chloe wished that Lucifer would stop giving her little moments of what they could be together, if he didn't intend to make the jump and begin a relationship with her. Another part of her craved the little moments he gave her, and insisted they were better than no moments at all.

He showed up at her apartment in the middle of the night and pulled her into his arms, hugging her tightly and explaining that he had a nightmare about her dying. Chloe comforted him and let him stay with her until morning.

One case later, he gave her the high school prom she never had. And they danced. The whole thing was magical, and she wouldn't trade the memories for anything.

She did wish, though, that she'd been able to convince Lucifer against his quest to find a way to kill Pierce. Instead, she gave him another idea that could potentially work. She was starting to believe that Lucifer put his daddy issues above everything else, including her.

* * *

Encountering Abel was interesting, and the possibility that he'd been as big an asshole as Cain was new (but still didn't change the fact that Cain had murdered him and didn't feel any remorse for doing so). But in the grand scheme of things, none of that was important.

Chloe had been worried that Lucifer was growing too close to Pierce, especially with the lieutenant basically "stealing" her partner from her. It eased when, after a bomb scare, Lucifer decided to end his partnership with the immortal man. Perhaps that meant he was learning to prioritise, learning to understand there were more important things to worry about than his daddy issues.

She soon realized that ending things with Cain was still fuelled by said daddy issues.

He was worried that God was going to punish him for his scheming by killing her. He avoided her and didn't help with their next case, apart from keeping the killer's target at Lux for safety. She knew he was freaking out over her almost dying, after the close call with the bomb. In an effort to get him to open up, she told him that she was scared of him dying too, and that it would be her fault because he was mortal around her.

And then, off-hand, he told her not to worry, because it wasn't like he hadn't already.

She very nearly didn't catch the killer because she was so focussed on what he'd said, and it was only later after he nearly died again (tackling the murderer to the floor and getting stabbed in the process) did they finally talk things out and she got him to tell her everything.

Twice. He'd died twice, for _her_. The first time when Malcolm had shot him, and he'd made a deal with God in order to come back. And then when she'd been poisoned, and without his wings had been forced to kill himself in order to go back to Hell and get the antidote.

Maybe he had tunnel vision when it came to his daddy issues. But when things got serious, she was more important to him than anything – even his own life.

Perhaps things would be better between them. Perhaps things could calm down, and they could keep moving forwards.

And then Cain had to walk right up to her desk and ask her out on a date. Well, he didn't exactly _ask_ her; he just invited himself to the concert with her, which was rude and completely out of line. Which she told him. The tickets were _hers_, and _she_ was going to choose who she went with. And her plus one was Lucifer.

Cain tried to convince her to change her mind, saying that Lucifer was hurt and probably wouldn't go anyway – and Chloe countered, saying if that was the case, she'd take Ella. Or Trixie. She stood her ground, and finally, he left.

She had no idea what that was about, and told herself to be more careful. She wondered if he knew she was digging around about his Sinnerman persona.

* * *

She didn't tell Lucifer about Cain's sudden interest until he asked her out again, the morning after the concert.

Lucifer, predictably, assumed that the immortal's reasonings was to get back at him for breaking their deal. Chloe rolled her eyes, but didn't dismiss the theory and stated her own, that it was because he'd discovered her digging around into his Sinnerman past. Lucifer admitted that it was possible, but pointed out that Cain had no idea that Chloe knew about all the celestial stuff.

Eventually, they decided that the only way to figure out what he was up to was for Chloe to date him and find out his motives by growing closer to him. The thought of kissing Cain and doing other things with him made her sick, but well, she was a former actress, she would have to deal and put on a performance.

And perform she did. Working undercover with him gave her the opportunity to convince him that she was interested, and he bought it. It almost ended in disaster when the killer knocked them out, but Lucifer was there and managed to save them in time.

After she arranged to go on a proper date with Pierce, Lucifer – who had been sat next to her, listening in – advised her to be careful. She squeezed his hand and said that she would be.

* * *

Chloe felt guilty that it took getting arrested for murder for her to realize that Maze was spiralling down into a dark place.

Well, she'd suspected that _something_ was going on with her roommate upon learning that she was, actually, no longer her roommate, along with Trixie getting upset over something Maze had said to her. But she'd been so caught up in the plan to fake her relationship with Pierce – along with everything that had been happening with Lucifer – that she hadn't paid attention.

And while it was a relief to discover that Maze was innocent, Chloe still worried. Linda and Amenadiel had been dating (a human and a celestial, it could happen, it sparked hope in her), but Maze had been against her best friend dating her ex, and had asked her not to – after the relationship had started. Linda had continued dating him anyway, calling Maze out on being selfish when the demon discovered them, and things had turned pretty ugly from there.

Chloe could see both sides of the story. She could understand how someone could get upset over seeing their best friend date an ex, but at the same time, it wasn't like Amenadiel had been cheating on Maze. Their relationship had ended, and Maze had said herself she didn't have feelings for him anymore. It _was_ selfish of her to deny Linda some happiness with someone she loved. Chloe wasn't angry at Charlotte for dating Dan, because there was no reason to be.

It was because Maze was a demon, Chloe reasoned. She wasn't used to having emotions, wasn't used to having relationships and caring about people, and didn't know how to handle things when they didn't go her way.

She tried to explain this to Maze, in the nicest way she could. Maze just called her a traitor and stormed off.

But that wasn't the worst part of her day. The worst part began when she had to take off her bullet necklace at Pierce's request, since she needed him to believe that she was fully invested in their relationship and wasn't thinking about another man. It continued when he took her back to his place and she snooped around in his draws while he was cooking dinner.

It was worse than what she'd found in Reese's office. Cain had files on all of them, and enough information to tell her that he'd been following them for a long time.

And then, after dinner, Cain hinted that he wanted her to stay the night. It was a step too far, so she faked a headache and called an Uber home. She put the bullet necklace back on the second she was out of his sight.

* * *

It soon got to a point where Chloe would have to decide how far she was willing to go in order to expose Cain.

She knew he was getting frustrated by her refusals to take the next step in their relationship. Not only was she reluctant to let him meet Trixie (the picture of the false Sinnerman as a child kept flashing in her mind whenever he suggested it), but they also hadn't slept together. It didn't become apparent just how impatient he was getting until he tried to make out with her in the supply closet, and it took every ounce of self-control she had not to punch him before she made a lame bathroom excuse and ran.

Trying to distract herself in the case didn't help. One of Lucifer's siblings potentially being involved in saving someone had intrigued her, as she'd only ever met Amenadiel, but Lucifer denied than any of them would be on Earth.

And to make matters worse, Lucifer was convinced that _he_ was the Angel doing the saving, and that he was sleepwalking. His refusal to sleep prevented him from helping her with the case _and_ with their plan against Cain, and she very nearly lost her temper with him until she noticed just how scared he was that he wasn't in control of his own body. She assured him that if he really didn't want to do something, then his body would listen, suggesting that something else was going on.

After the case was solved and Chloe had returned home, she got a desperate call from Lucifer. It was hard to make out what he was saying at first – he sounded both angry and frightened and was talking at a mile a minute – but eventually she understood.

Maze was working with Cain, and she'd set Lucifer up to believe that he was sleepwalking so he was distracted from Chloe, so Cain could put the moves on her. And why did he want to do that? He thought that her feelings were the key to why Lucifer was vulnerable around her. So, he planned to make her fall for him, breaking his curse so he could die. And _then_, to add insult to injury, Maze would kill Cain and blame Lucifer, so he'd have no choice but to go back to Hell and take the demon with him.

The rage she felt was something she'd never quite felt before. For Maze to sink so low, for Cain to do such a selfish thing… If she had been unaware, if she hadn't found out about Lucifer and been convinced that Pierce was a normal guy, if she had dated him for real and the plan had been followed through… Three people she cared about would've been gone in one blow.

But she knew that confronting Cain wouldn't be the best move. She had Trixie to think about, not to mention all the other people she cared about. The immortal could go after any one of them in order to get back at her.

So, when he came over to dinner, she laid it on thick about how he was such a great guy and would never do anything to hurt her. She hoped that maybe, if she made him feel guilty, he'd have second thoughts and back down. It was a shot in the dark, since this guy had obviously cared about no one but himself for thousands of years, but it was the only plan she had.

To her shock, it worked.

Cain told her she wasn't worth it, never elaborating on what he meant (but she knew, oh did she know), and left.

Then Lucifer arrived some time afterwards, and she walked into his embrace. It was over.

* * *

It wasn't over.

Her act had worked too well, because Cain believed he was in love with her. _Actually_ in love with her. She didn't know how she'd managed that, and wondered if Cain had maybe just mistaken his feelings of guilt for feelings of love. It was probably the first time he'd ever been in love, after all.

Lucifer confirmed that Cain had lost his mark, had seen it himself when he confronted him the previous night. He also said that the former immortal had gotten ideas in his head about getting married and settling down and growing old, which would've been nice if he wasn't a mob boss who'd killed people including his own brother.

Justice needed to be served, and she wasn't about to let him off the hook because he felt a little guilty.

And if avoiding Pierce and his advances wasn't stressful enough, Lucifer had decided to throw his hat into the ring and was trying to prove that he would make a better boyfriend. Why? She didn't know; the only answer she got out of him was that he wanted to prove he was better, which when she really thought about it, just sounded like an excuse. Maybe he just wanted to try and chase Cain away from her.

Or maybe he was finally making his move, genuinely, after all this time and was still having trouble expressing himself. She didn't know what to think, and was reluctant to invest in his advances emotionally if he didn't even know why he was trying to win her.

_Then_, to add more shit to her emotionally charged day, Cain showed up on her doorstep and proposed to her.

Something in her snapped.

She let him have it with both barrels, telling him that she knew who he really was, knew about his secret identity as the Sinnerman, and knew all about his little plan to emotionally manipulate her into loving him for his own ends without even caring what would happen to her after he died and she lost not just him, but two of her best friends.

He said that since he actually loved her now, they could work things out. Yes, he'd used her before, but he felt guilty about that and she should be moved by his change of heart. She laughed, because his lack of emotional comprehension made Lucifer look like a functional human being. No, she told him. A relationship built on lies could never be a relationship, not a healthy one at least.

Cain got desperate. He insisted that she had to love him, since his mark was gone. Well sorry, she said, but her feelings didn't control _shit_, because she didn't feel anything for him other than disgust and loathing.

She had to admit that he looked genuinely heartbroken, but she couldn't bring herself to feel guilty. He'd used her for his own ends, while she had only been pretending in order to uncover the truth and bring him to justice. She wasn't about to apologise for trying to do the right thing.

Then his face hardened, and he began to say all sorts of nasty things about Lucifer, telling her she didn't know anything about him, that he still kept secrets from her. One of which was why she had the power to make him mortal; why his mojo didn't affect her.

She was a miracle child. Amenadiel had blessed her mother, allowing her to be conceived, and he had done this at the behest of God. She was a literal miracle, and God had decreed her existence.

Her mouth opened, but no words came out. She was speechless.

That was when Lucifer arrived, and he threatened Cain into leaving.

Only when Cain had left, did Chloe break down, leaning on Lucifer and bawling her eyes out as the stress of the past few months caught up with her. In between her sobs, she asked if what Cain said about her was true.

His silence was all the answer she needed.

* * *

Lucifer and Dan took over the next case, telling Chloe that she was way too stressed to be working and needed to rest.

She didn't believe them until she snapped at Ella. Her friend had tried to convince her to give Pierce another shot, since he looked depressed, and Chloe had yelled at her; yelled that Pierce wasn't who he said he was and couldn't be trusted, then yelled that Ella wasn't exactly the best judge of character, always thinking the world of jerks like Pierce and that comedian and her criminal brother…

It took her all of a few seconds to realize that she was out of line, and immediately apologized to Ella for the yelling. She confided in her friend about Pierce being the Sinnerman, which gained immediate support and a promise to help her, and then about her feelings for Lucifer. Ella suggested that she take the leap, but that was advice from a friend who didn't see the full picture.

Chloe didn't know if she had any control over her actions. Did God plan out her entire life for her? Did she choose to become a cop? To marry Dan? To have Trixie? To work with Lucifer? To fall in love with Lucifer? Was anything in her life real?

Ella called on the tribe to come and help, with Maze being a no-show and Linda inviting Charlotte. She confided in the two women in the know, who gave their own advice on the situation – that she shouldn't care. Chloe didn't think it was that simple, and indulged in a lot of alcohol to take her mind off it.

At some point, Maze and Amenadiel showed up at the bar where they were partying. Chloe complained that she didn't want Maze there, so Ella went to take care of it while Charlotte and Linda wrangled Amenadiel into helping. And _finally_, Chloe got a straight answer that sobered her right up: God may have decreed her birth, but that was all He did. Humans had free will; He didn't decide what Chloe did with her life. And even though meeting Lucifer was too big a coincidence for it not to be preordained, that was the only part God had a hand in.

Her life was her own. She could relax.

But her existence wasn't the only thing she'd been stressing over. Cain's next move was also a constant worry.

So, when she got a call from the mother of Trixie's best friend, saying a man had stopped by to take her daughter home early, Chloe immediately raced home. She burst through the door and there was Cain, sat on the couch with her daughter's head resting on his lap, and she immediately demanded that he leave.

He played innocent, saying that Trixie had wanted to come home, but then her daughter woke up and told the truth; Cain had manipulated her into leaving the sleepover, had forced her to go with him. Chloe placed herself in front of her daughter and once again told Cain to leave. He refused; he wanted to talk, wanted to convince her that they would be good together, that he would give her everything she ever wanted if she chose to marry him.

She asked him if he'd do to Trixie what he'd done to the false Sinnerman. He tried to deny it.

Then Maze arrived determined to kill Pierce, but was reluctant to get violent in front of Trixie. That alone told Chloe that she wasn't lost, but that didn't stop the detective from chewing out her former roommate for her selfish behaviour. She'd refused Linda a chance at happiness for pretty much no reason, tried to manipulate her into falling for Pierce, and then planned to kill him and frame Lucifer. Chloe made Maze aware of just how many lives she would have destroyed, and that her refusal to get off her high horse and admit any wrongdoing was only making her life worse. And at the end of the day, she had sided with a man who had tried to use Trixie as another manipulation.

Maze left. Cain didn't. Realizing that she didn't feel safe in her own home, Chloe sent Trixie to go pack a bag. When her daughter was gone, she pulled out a gun and pointed it at Cain; she told him they were leaving, and unless he wanted a bullet in his head, he was going to let them and not follow.

She couldn't pack a bag, but figured that it didn't matter. She could sleep in one of Lucifer's shirts.

When they left, she drove them directly to Lucifer's penthouse. He was sat at his piano when they arrived, and once she explained the situation, he said that they could stay for as long as they needed to. He even offered to send Lux's bouncers to go and collect some of her stuff, so she didn't have to return to her home.

They shared a glance.

Cain needed to be taken care of, and fast.

* * *

They got Charlotte involved. Though they had to hold off on the investigation when a new case connected to a client from Charlotte's past.

Lucifer, true to form, wanted things to go back to normal between them, and even tried to relive their "greatest hits". Knowing who he was, how long he'd been alive and how much of that time he'd spent in Hell, with the company of demons and sinners but alone nonetheless… It helped her understand why he did what he did, and it was easier to be patient with him.

Her actions were rewarded. Lucifer finally confessed his true feelings, and she returned them. They shared a kiss.

It all came crashing down when her phone rang.

* * *

Charlotte was dead.

While there were a number of people who had wanted her dead – old clients, her former partner at the law firm – Chloe knew that it had been Cain. He'd been way too quiet, and if he'd found out that Charlotte was involved in the case against him… Or even if he hadn't known, killing someone close to them had all the signs of a warning shot.

Dan came to her with the same thoughts, having found information on Pierce in Charlotte's files. Cain taking over the case and pretending to be upset convinced Chloe all the more that he was responsible.

As the case went on, they soon realized just how good Cain was when it came to covering his tracks, though he dropped all pretences when she called and informed him she knew he was the murderer. And he wasn't good enough, because he didn't even consider that she'd record the call and his confession. Or maybe he just figured that they'd all be dead before they had a chance to turn it in as evidence.

The next morning, it was less 'figured' and more 'certain'.

She and Lucifer walked into an ambush. Cain gave her a chance to walk away, and maybe a small part of him did love her, but that didn't matter in Chloe's opinion. And that part of him wasn't big enough, since after she shot him, he ordered both of them to be finished off.

Thank God for Lucifer's wings, and that irony wasn't lost on Chloe. (Lucifer had told her earlier that God hadn't returned his wings, he'd done that himself.)

Lucifer flew her to safety, before returning to finish Cain off. Chloe didn't run as fast as she could've done, wanting to give Lucifer his immortality for as long as possible. When she arrived, Cain was lying dead with a knife sticking out of his chest.

And Lucifer was crouched over the body…wearing what Chloe knew must've been his Devil Face.

Chloe halted at the bottom of the steps, taking it in.

Lucifer smiled at her, then frowned, and then he realized what had happened and tried to send it away. It stayed in place.

Seeing the panic in his eyes brought Chloe back into the moment. This was Lucifer, the man she loved. There was nothing to be afraid of. She was safe with him.

So, she crossed the remaining distance between them, and kissed him.


End file.
